Keep that card in your pocket, ref

I had a soccer game last night. We were winning 4-3 late in the game and I had been having a pretty good game. I had 2 goals and 2 assists and was feeling pretty good.

An opposing defender who had been called twice previously for pushing me in the back had just pushed again – and was called for it again. He had been talking to the referee the whole game about my pushing, but I had not been called for anything. Frustrated at this perceived inequity and yet another foul, he decided to talk to me. I foolishly talked back, the referee heard me and pulled out a card on me. I was off to the sideline for the remainder of the game. That’s where I got to watch the other team score their tying goal.

What are the lessons in this?

1. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. ‘Nuff said.
2. You can’t ride on your past success. Just because I usually keep my mouth shut during games does not mean that the time I do open it that I should not get a card pulled on me.
3. It’s a slippery slope you can go down. I will remember the penalty and what ‘may have been’ from that game, more than the 4 points I logged.
4. Ignorance is not bliss. Even if I knew the referee was intently listening, I would not have believed he would pull a card for some non-curse words. Wrong! The words I spoke were not helpful to any aspect of our team objective. They did no good. There was only downside.

The answer is knowledge (which I now have), experience (which I now have), reflection (which I did) and commitment (I’ll post again if I ever get a card for my words). If sport is a microcosm of life, there are definite parallels to consulting. Face the reality of your situation, deliver frequent huge results for clients, keep your game on in tough times, learn your ropes and don’t make the same mistakes twice.

Interview on Technology Today

This podcast is a 15 minute interview in which I was asked about my background, the book, staying current in your field, the consulting market, where I make my income, and the difference between a consultant and a contractor.

http://www.philsimonsystems.com/content/tech-today/consulting-business/

Gartner: Thought Leadership is Key to Marketing Consulting Services

Here's a link to an article that references a column of mine and refers to thought leadership as a key to marketing consulting services. "Gartner: Thought Leadership is Key to Marketing Consulting Services; Consulting service expertise is reflected in client marketing but needs to be an organized discipline".

Information Management Online, February 1, 2010

Party with the Cowboy

I’m watching a television commercial where the mother is all set for a pirate themed birthday party for the kids. Well, almost all set. Here comes the cowboy mascot and the insinuation is that the party is doomed. In the idyllic commercial, this was no problem. She is able to call in a real pirate (a real fake one that is) and the party is saved. The solution fits into the 30 seconds.

Maybe I’m just being too practical or like to pick my battles. First, I think it would have been fun to have a cowboy at an otherwise pirate-themed party. Second, if you make it out to be fun and no big deal, the kids would go for it. But finally, and most of all, the chances of getting that changed at the last minute and having the pirate make it to party with the kids with any time at all left in the party is slim and none. I would make the call and try, but when you see the writing on the wall, you might as well party with the cowboy.

How many of us are being sidetracked spending time working on enhancements to projects that ultimately will not materialize into productive work effort towards the project goals and deadlines? Many projects I review are immensely burdened by such activity. Instead of partying with the cowboy (reality), we keeping calling for the pirate (impractical wishisms) while the kids (clients, internal customers) get increasingly annoyed at not having a mascot (project deliverables).

Looking forward, not backward

I was reading a piece of advice in Men’s Fitness magazine. It went something like ‘get rid of those stored phone numbers of your ex-girlfriends and move on’. That’s great advice I suppose, but I couldn’t help but think of its parallel to consulting. We consultants can tend to drag around a long list of hopeful clients and projects. When they fail to materialize “on time”, as many are prone to do, of course, we keep in touch with the client to see if/when the timing may be better. However, after a while, and especially after long periods of silence, it may be time to mentally and physically remove that project from the realm of real possibilities by scratching it off your list.

“Long” in this context will be defined by various factors including how much your list is growing with new activity, what a normal sales cycle has been like for you, as well as the effects on your temperament of looking at that client name on your list and just knowing nothing is going to come of it. That can be demoralizing. However, if you’re filling the pipeline, you’re not concerned with these ex-prospects.

Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing

For those of you with teams on the ground at client sites, permit me to share some group development-think that has inspired me and given me a basis for effectively moving my teams to higher levels of maturity and performance. I first learned about the Bruce Tuckman Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing model in MBA school, but as with many things we learned in school, it is easy to forget or believe there is no applicability to it.

However, I recently used the model as a touchstone for a team’s development and, at the least, it helped to assure me that some of the early-stage team “forming” actions involving feelings, insecurities and other such controversies are NORMAL. The model also helped me see where the team can go, if things are handled properly. I recalled all the teams I’ve brought together over the years for client work and, by placing our team development against the model, it proved to be a roadmap we’ve followed, even if unconsciously.

So why not follow it consciously? I’m going to keep it handy. Moving onward into the mature stage of performing takes mutual trust, respect, lots of communication and having all members treat team decisions AS THEIR OWN. So, whether you’re forming, storming or norming, pretty soon you can be PERFORMING.

As the model says, and my experience bears out, each team MUST go through each stage. No skipping! So be patient and guide your teams to solid foundations at each stage, all the way to Performing.

Here is the Wikipedia entry for “Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing.”

In Business

I had to gently remind someone last week that I am in business. Many consultants face a quandary about giving away free consulting. I’m actually not talking about that. I’m pretty bad about that actually – call me and, when I become available, we’re talking. I enjoy my discipline and helping others too much sometimes, especially when I’m learning back.

But I’m not talking about that kind of free consulting. I’m talking about matchmaking consultants to projects. It’s a part of my business. So, when a colleague calls to see if I ‘have anybody’ or ‘know anybody’ who fits a profile, I want to be sure some things are understood early before we get too far into the process. I will ask many questions. If I happen to ‘know someone’ who may be a fit, that knowing is borne of many years of relationship building, industry study and record-keeping. It’s a developed asset. Most understand this. Since I place consultants, I take the paper, the risks, etc., and a fee.

Unfortunately, it’s not always understood and somebody was offended when we started talking rate and it was apparent my firm would factor into that equation in some small way. Fortunately, I made this clear early in the process before I spent too much time on it. And so should you.

Whenever the fee for what you think is a ‘service’ is questioned, you have to question whether you have truly differentiated that service. And placing consultants alone is hard to differentiate. My differentiator there, again, is my years of relationship building and industry knowledge. I know who does good work in all the nooks and crannies of my space and I know how to take a job order and make sure people are a fit, technically and otherwise. Some will still see this as ‘easy’ or a naked ‘contribution’ I make to their cause.

The experience also reminds me of a time when a company owed me a payment and tried to escape the responsibility by appealing to that fact that ‘I have savings’ or some such thing. To which I replied “Whether I need the payment to keep from starvation or not tomorrow may be evident, but my charities need it more than either one of us.” I don’t know how clever it was, but that’s what came out.